Week 87 - Miami, Oklahama

Long email again.  Important stuff's in red.

Hey all!

Back in the saddle again. Oklahoma's a pretty wild place, that's for sure. Kinda reminds me of Fort Smith, AR, where I served last winter. Basically that means it's the cowboy hood. Plus we have a lot of Native American tribes here so that's sick. 

In other news, my friend Alex who we found knocking doors in Anderson two weeks ago is on date for baptism in March! He really is just the kind of person we missionaries look and look for. Please keep praying for him! They're working so far 

Song of the week: "Heat Wave" by Snail Mail 

~

Elder Ahmad Corbitt, a global Church leader in the Quorum of the Seventy, came to Joplin, Missouri for our semi-annual stake conference! It was so so so awesome. I took like ten pages of notes on the little spiral-bound notepad that now serves as my "phone" haha. I could go on and on about it, but I'll try to summarize the overarching theme of his messages. 

 The Book of Mormon teaches a unique lesson about faith in Jesus Christ: if we desire the faith of the prophets, we must "Look forward with the eye of faith and see the Lord's promise fulfilled." The Lord cannot lie. Therefore, if He says something will happen, it can be effectively treated as if it has already happened. One awesome example lies in the prophet Abinadi's teachings of Christ and His atoning sacrifice:

 And now if Christ had not come into the world, speaking of things to come as though they had already come, there could have been no redemption. 

 And if Christ had not risen from the dead, or have broken the bands of death that the grave should have no victory, and that death should have no sting, there could have been no resurrection. 

 But there is a resurrection, therefore the grave hath no victory, and the sting of death is swallowed up in Christ. 

 He is the light and the life of the world; yea, a light that is endless, that can never be darkened; yea, and also a life which is endless, that there can be no more death.

...Boy, do I love this book. 

 Anyways, Abinadi looked forward to the resurrection of Christ and knew that, despite it being over a century beforehand, the battle was already won. He consciously chose to live in ~148 B.C. as if Christ's suffering and victory had already occured, because he was utterly confident in the Lord's promise. 

 Let's apply this to some situations in our day: How would you act if the Second Coming of Christ had already happened? I know I would probably be a lot more bold in sharing my testimony of the Savior and zealous in following His every word. Wouldn't you? In that case, if the Lord's always good on His word then why not act that way now? You see, it may not have happened yet, but the when simply doesn't matter. It will happen, and that's the truth. 

 Here's another: One of my greatest life goals is to build a loving family of my own, rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. An impression that came to me as I listened to Elder Corbitt teach was, "How might I act differently in this meeting if my future family were sitting next to me right now?" When I look forward with the eye of faith, I know that someday, I will be a part of this family. Do my actions now matter any less than my actions at that future point in determining the kind of husband and father I am to them? Not on the Lord's timetable. 

I'm out of time and out of room, so I'll leave a lil' bibliography here for anyone who wants to do their personal study on looking forward on the Lord's promises with the eye of faith. Here's some scriptural examples Elder Corbitt shared with us:

Alma 5:15

Alma 33:19-20

Moroni 7:40-41

Alma 26:27

(PoGP) Moses 7:40-41

Mosiah 7:44-45, 47

Ether 3:12

Ether 12:19

Mosiah 16:6

Jarom 1:11

1 Nephi 2:20

1 Nephi 5:5

2 Nephi 25:24-25

(D&C) Doctrine and Covenants 111:11

(NT) Revelation 12:7-11

Alma 32:30-41

Jesus Christ is real. He did what He said He did and He is Who He says He is. And, His Church is alive right now. Aren't we lucky?

Love,

Elder Rigby

Week 73 - Fayetteville, Arkansas

 Wow, I totally didn't finish one of my thoughts last week. That random tangent about a keyboard with a song bank that I wrote about in my previous email was supposed to lead somewhere but that thought's gone now so oh well. 

~

November 20th, 2024

Hey everyone! 

Closing time here at the UofA. Transfer news came today and I'll be heading up to Anderson, Missouri with Elder Perry this Friday! Boy, this is bittersweet. I've had a lot of ups and downs in Fayetteville but I really think it's been my favorite area I've served in so far. It's gonna be weird going from a city of 100,000+ to a few scattered towns of under 2,000 each but the Lord has need of me there and I'm ready for some miracles.

 There are too many of you to shout out individually, but to all my friends in Fayetteville, you've changed my life. Thank you. 

Woo pig forever! 

My new address is 506 Tracy St, Anderson, MO 64831

~

Some fun stuff from this week:

- Happy six months to my last comp Elder Foster! Ya done good, son. 

- We exchanged with the Marshallese Elders up in Springdale for a day and I got to work with the Marshallese people with Elder Condie! It was a super cool experience. They're so fun and they have so much love. We did a stop smoking workshop with one couple and found another girl who wants to come along to church with Elder Wasden and his new companion down in Fayetteville! 

 

- Experienced a new dimension of spicy suffering after downing ⅔ of a can of ghost pepper chili cause it was the only food I brought to Springdale. Just...Just don't do what I did. Don't even buy it. It ain't worth it 

- There are 100% definitely house elves in the institute building. We were alone in the church tonight with both doors locked and left for an hour and when we got back somehow there were five new bottles of Gatorade and a 12-pack of soda that I'm certain weren't there when we left. +

~

Here's my Google Photos album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/2sk1refRidSszyYk7

Cool speech: https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/j-ty-hopkins/lessons-on-endurance/

~

Thought: Revelation 3:19-21

 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

Taking correction is hard. I've had a couple of moments this week where I felt really chastised and had to fight to keep my pride at bay. From my experience, the urge to snap back a defensive retort, justify my actions, and deny my weaknesses was oh so tempting, but this time, the Spirit brought a scripture to my mind and it gave me pause. 

 I took out my phone, looked it up, and found Revelation 3:19 to be what the Spirit put into my mind. What's more, the next two verses contained an interesting promise from the Lord Himself:

 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. 

 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

 We know from 2 Nephi 26:24 in the Book of Mormon that the Lord does nothing unintentionally. So, to my understanding, the Lord seems to link receiving chastisement well and repenting humbly with receiving Him into one's heart. As we see in Mosiah 3:19, those who "put off the natural man" by doing so are promised to become "[saints] through the atonement of Christ the Lord". To me, it all seemed to boil down to one question that came into my mind:

When I am faced with the choice between my pride and my Savior, which will I choose?

Isaiah 57:15:

For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

Love, 

Elder Rigby

Week 72 - Fayetteville Arkansas

Hey everyone! 

I had an awkward twenty minutes of free time before P-day started and I could go back to sleep this morning so I figured I'd knock my email out early this time.

Me and Elder Wasden are literally just Timon and Pumba from The Lion King. I don't really know how else to describe it, so yeah, we're living it up. The work's going great and we had a lot of friends join us for church this week! Plus, both Elder Wasden and I were asked to speak in church this Sunday so it was perfect timing! I didn't think to record it but in short I based it off of the talk "It’s True, Isn’t It? Then What Else Matters?" by Elder Neil L. Andersen and talked about four things that matter most to me:

1) Jesus Christ was resurrected. 

2) The Two Great Commandments are the ultimate recipe for joy and spiritual survival. 

3) The beauty of God's creations are evidence that He is real and He loves us.

4) The Gospel of Jesus Christ was restored.

Here's that message from Elder Andersen:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2007/04/its-true-isn-t-it-then-what-else-matters?lang=eng

~

Other fun stuff that happened this week:

- Met a missionary who served in the Fayetteville YSA 33 years ago! 

- My old mission buddy Davy McKee is getting married to his longtime girlfriend next month! Bro can't wait until I get home smh >:(

- Elder Wasden's first name is Carter and I called him Carson nine times in one day on Sunday 

- A member tossed me a water bottle after church on Sunday and I tried to land it on my head and it totally exploded all over me right smack in the middle of the chapel  So much of being a missionary is just learning how to be in the most stupidly embarrassing situations 24/7 and just taking it like a champ haha. 

- One of my best pals is serving his mission in Peru right now and a past missionary companion of his pulled up to one of our YSA activities last week! What are the chances haha. It's a real small world in the Church, isn't it.

- My roommate Elder Thomsen found out one of the three keyboards in our apartment has a preprogrammed song bank

~

Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/2sk1refRidSszyYk7

Song of the week: "Blue Ain't Your Color" by Keith Urban

Scripture of the week: Isaiah 58:3-12 - the true law of the fast

~

Love you all! So does God. 

- Elder Rigby

Week 71 - Fayetteville, Arkansas

*two fishes

Awkward typo when you teach out of the scriptures all day long 

Hey all!

Another week, another round of lessons learned, another short email.

 Nothing like tornadoes in November to give you writing material for your weekly email. We had *six* lessons to walk around the temple with our friends one at a time during a game night up in Bentonville but seeing as how there was a funnel cloud directly over UArk campus they decided to postpone the activity and the lessons until next week. Dang 'nadoes. 

Elder and Sister Bednar, global leaders of our church, gave amazing messages at a devotional broadcast for young adults on Sunday night! I've said it before, but they're pretty special to us here in Arkansas because Elder Bednar used to be a business professor at the college I'm serving at right now! Their message is very specifically focused on technology, the power of human agency, and the God-given opportunity to work and grow for ourselves. It's awesome.

 https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media/broadcasts/nov-worldwide-devotional-for-young-adults?lang=eng&mode=watch

 I love Ring Pops. Just thought you should know

 Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/2sk1refRidSszyYk7

Quote of the week: "My area of Arkansas is fancy Arkansas." - Elder Thomsen

Scripture of the week: 2 Samuel 24:24

"...Nay; but I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing."

Please, reach out whenever you feel like it! I'm happy to hear from ya and I'll do my best to respond when I can. Love you all!

Elder Rigby

Week 70 - Fayetteville, Arkansas

Hey everyone!

I decided to take more time to respond to individual letters and emails today so this'll be super short. Elder Wasden and I are doing well here in Fayetteville and the work's progressing slow and steady. Unfortunately, we found out our one friend with a solid date for his baptism had some legal troubles and won't be able to be baptized for another year :/ but our other friends have been doing great! We bring five loaves and three fishes, and He does the rest.

Song of the week: "Bryn" by Vampire Weekend

Cool BYU devotional: "The Atonement of Jesus Christ, Judgment Day, and You" by

Jörg Klebingat. Elder Klebingat doesn't preach fire and brimstone, but he does shoot real straight. Personally, I thought his candor was refreshing. To me, this speech is a powerful sermon on "costly grace."

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/jorg-klebingat/the-atonement-of-jesus-christ-judgment-day-and-you/

A suggestion:

Think through God's plan for you, then try counting the number of gifts He gives to us in it. I'm sure there are way more, but here are some that I came up with in a minute or two:

- The gift of life
- The gift of a body
- The gift of a loving family
- The gift of a Savior
- The gift of repentance and forgiveness

- The gift of freedom and agency

- The gift of the scriptures

- The gift of the Priesthood

- The gift of commandments

- The gift of a living prophet

- The gift of nature

- The gift of music

- The gift of friends

- The gift of prayer

- The gift of the Gospel of Jesus Christ

What gifts are you most grateful to God for? If you spend time to identify and write them down, your everyday life will become much, much more joyful.

Love,

Elder Rigby

Hardly took any pictures this week so this'll have to do

Week 66 - Fayetteville, Arkansas

 Hey all! 

Another week down. I have thirteen other drafts sitting in my Gmail right now and yet again I just don't have the time to finish them all this week. I'm sorry! I'll get back to you soon! For now, here are some highlights from my week:

First off, here's a crazy cool miracle. Way back in December, my zone briefly did a pilot program in finding people to teach through Facebook. It had a lot of haters, but a few missionaries (you know who you are) were total social media finding champs until it eventually got shut down. I'll say I claimed the middle ground between those two haha. We did our due diligence but only ever ended up getting like three people to accept our friend requests so we could message them. One of them, a guy named Asher (last name omitted for privacy reasons,) we sent this nice lil video we made just for him the day after Christmas and despite all that effort he totally ghosted us. 

However!

Here we are sitting in a big missionary meeting called Zone Conference last Friday and we got on the topic of working with those who have recently converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ to help them share His message with their family and friends and some Elders from a couple towns over piped up "yeah, ever since our buddy Asher ------ was baptized back in March, he's been totally awesome at sharing the Gospel with his friends" and I absolutely spewed my metaphorical hot chocolate. Completely by accident, I totally blurted out right in the middle of the meeting, "Did you just say Asher ------!?!?!? We messaged that guy on Facebook last Christmas! WHAT?!?"

Awkward.

Anyways...it really was him. Through what I am sure was nothing short of the whispering of the Holy Spirit and guidance of the hand of God, this guy we messaged one day after Christmas found his local Church meetinghouse all on his own and decided to just pull up to church one day. He met with the missionaries, learned and prayed about the message of the Restored Gospel, and chose to be baptized and confirmed into the Lord's fold. And get this - he's a Sunday School teacher now! God is real and good.

~

Other cool news:

- Our friend Luis told us after our last group Book of Mormon study, "Wow, going to the temple sounds so cool. I guess I've just gotta be baptized now." Attaboy, Luis.

- Marli's been real sick for the last few weeks. The doctors said she'll be better in a few weeks but she'll be out for at least a month. This is such a critical time in her conversion, so if you wouldn't mind, I'd really appreciate it if you could keep her in your prayers.

- I'm becoming a plant dad again. Every time we knock the door of someone with a ton of plants and they're not interested, I ask them if they have any plants they don't really want and they've hooked me up almost every single time. In the last week alone, I've acquired a monstera, a Brazilian philo dendron, a spider plant, and a pot of marigolds. 

- For those of you who know what it is, go to Emotional Resilience class when you get the chance. If you don't, look it up. It is so inspired. 

~

General Conference is this weekend!

One of the most critical doctrines of Jesus Christ's Gospel is that He speaks to His disciples through His mouthpieces, the prophets (Amos 3:7,) and one of the most distinct beliefs of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is that He still does so today. 

Members: please invite your friends to watch Conference with you! Think of the wonderful ways Christ could change someone's life because of your courageous invitation to them to act in faith.

Friends: If you're curious about what prophets and temples and priesthood and all that other fancy vocab I and my missionary friends often use, look no further than the source. If you want to see for yourself if God speaks to his people today, then "come and see."

~

Scripture of the week: Moses 6:53, 59-60

And our father Adam spake unto the Lord, and said: Why is it that men must repent and be baptized in water?

...

 That by reason of transgression cometh the fall, which fall bringeth death, and inasmuch as ye were born into the world by water, and blood, and the spirit, which I have made, and so became of dust a living soul, even so ye must be born again into the kingdom of heaven, of water, and of the Spirit, and be cleansed by blood, even the blood of mine Only Begotten; that ye might be sanctified from all sin, and enjoy the words of eternal life in this world, and eternal life in the world to come, even immortal glory; 

 For by the water ye keep the commandment; by the Spirit ye are justified, and by the blood ye are sanctified.

~

Come and see:

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/event/october-2024-general-conference

Love, 

Elder Rigby

Week 65 - Fayetteville, Arkansas

 Hey all! I woke up feeling sicky today but at least it was pretty mild yesterday. Speaking of which, thank you all so much for the birthday wishes yesterday! My birthday was different but all the things that mattered were the same. 

Since I'm low on time, here's my week:

Thursday through Sunday: 

Boy, we fell out of the boat for a few days. I won't go into detail but it was a real hard few days for us. We're good now though. 

Anyways, party week:

Monday: 

We had two friends along to our church volleyball night! Plus, someone gave me a big ol' monstera plant when we were out knocking doors. 

Tuesday : 

we had exchanges with the Huntsville Elders! I went with my good friend Elder Dildine and had a great day. 20th birthday party part 1: eating hobo soup (made by the one and only Sister Cannon, my surrogate grandma from my very first area) with three other Elders at 8:30 at night in a frat-house-turned-church on a college campus in northwest Arkansas. Absolutely unreal vibe.

Today: 

P-day! Long story short, it was a good one. 20th birthday party part 2: Emotional Resilience class with the YSAs and a huge box of Nerds gummy clusters from my dad. Plus, I bought some Pokémon cards with all the coins we've found while knocking doors and one of my member friends gave me a plant. Good stuff. 

Tomorrow: 

Exchanges with Elder Illguth! He's basically Elder Foster but jacked. This will be our third exchange together but the last time was all the way back in Fort Smith like eight months ago so it'll be fun to work together again. 

Friday: Zone Conference! We'll be heading up to a big meeting with our mission leaders and a ton of other missionaries so that's gonna be awesome. 

Thought: DIY

I'm sorry y'all, I'm out of time this week. I want to share some things that describe my experiences with the Spirit and sharing Christ's love with others but I think it'll have to come in IKEA form tonight. Combine these three things and it'll give a good picture of what I've learned this week:

1) Mosiah 7:18: "an effectual struggle"

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/7?lang=eng

2) "BrokEn" by Coldplay

3) "Stay in the Boat and Hold On!" by Elder M. Russell Ballard

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2014/10/stay-in-the-boat-and-hold-on?lang=eng

Love you all! Friendly reminder: it's all true.

Love, 

Elder Rigby

PS After reading this again this morning, I realized I should probably add a note to give more context:

When I said "we fell out of the boat," I meant we had a hard few days physically, mentally, and spiritually, not that we experienced personal apostasy like Elder Ballard talks about at times in the message I linked at the bottom. I'm not perfect but I don't plan on leaving the Lord anytime soon.

John 6:67-69:

 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?

 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. 

 And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.